In this article:
What is Summarize Changes
When to use it
How to use it
What is Summarise Changes?
Summarise Changes helps you generate a clear, structured overview of modifications in a document. Instead of manually reviewing each tracked change, comment, or version difference, it produces an intelligent summary of what has changed.
You can use Summarise Changes in two ways:
Summarise Track Changes and comments within a single document, including where each change occurred, the type of change, and a brief explanation
Summarise differences between two document versions when Track Changes were not used.
Each summary can be customised by selecting the language, choosing the desired level of detail, grouping the content in different ways, and adding optional instructions for the underlying large language model.
When to use it
Use Summarise Changes when you want to:
Quickly understand document changes through a consolidated overview of insertions, deletions, rewrites, and comments
Compare versions without Track Changes and still see a clear summary of all differences
Reduce back-and-forth during collaboration or negotiation by providing a clean, readable summary of updates
Document changes for audit or version control with a written record of modifications
When not to use it
Summarise Changes may not be suitable if:
You need to apply, accept, or reject Track Changes, as this feature only reports on changes
The document requires formatting or technical cleanup, such as layout or spacing fixes
You are looking for stylistic or substantive rewriting, rather than a description of changes
There is only one minor change, where a manual review would be faster
How to use it
Summarise Changes can be used in two different ways, depending on your scenario.
Summarise track changes and comments of one document
In this mode of the feature, ClauseBuddy will create an overview of all track changes and comments in the active document, a document you upload, or text you select.
This mode is ideal when Track Changes or comments were used during drafting or review.
Compare two texts and summarise their changes
In this mode, ClauseBuddy generates an overview of all differences between two documents or texts. This is ideal when Track Changes were not used and you still need a clear summary of what changed.
In both modes, the first step is to specify which content you want to summarise.
You can choose from the following options:
Current document – the Word document currently open
Selection – only the text selected in the active Word document
Text – text you type or paste manually (available only in two‑document mode)
Other document – an external file that you upload
Importat Note
In single‑document mode, you can only upload Word documents. PDFs do not contain Track Changes or comments and cannot be summarised in this mode.
Additional settings
After selecting the content, you can further tailor the summary using the following settings.
Language
Choose the language in which the summary will be generated
Answer length
Control how concise or detailed the summary should be:
Short – a brief, high‑level overview
Medium – a balanced summary with moderate detail
Long – a comprehensive, in‑depth explanation
Grouping
Choose how similar changes are grouped in the summary:
Minimal grouping – each change is listed separately
Medium grouping – similar changes are grouped into small, logical clusters
Maximal grouping – all similar changes are combined into broad, high‑level groups
Additional instructions
Before generating the summary, you can add optional instructions to guide how the AI analyses and presents the changes. This allows you to tailor the output to your workflow or audience.
Examples:
“Focus on changes that affect obligations or risk.”
“Ignore cosmetic edits such as punctuation or spacing.”
“Use a formal, neutral tone throughout the summary.”
Generating the summary
Once your content and settings are selected, click Summarise to generate the overview.
Understanding the results
Here we have an example of a summary of the differences between two documents:
The results are presented in a table with three columns:
Topic – where the change occurred
Explanation – what changed
Type of change – the nature of the modification
Topic (left column)
The Topic column indicates which part of the document was affected, such as a clause, section, or paragraph.
Topics are colour‑coded to indicate significance:
Red – crucial
Orange – very important
Yellow – important
Light green – less important
Dark green – unimportant
You can also filter the overview by importance level.
Explanation (middle column)
This column explains the detected change or difference in plain language. Depending on your selected settings, explanations may be concise or detailed.
Each explanation includes a reference to the exact location where the change was detected.
Type of change (right column)
This column categorises the type of modification. Examples include:
Reference correction
Terminology
Business change
Formality change
Typo
Capitalisation
Punctuation
Cleanup
Comment
Deletion
Governing law / jurisdiction
Legal precision
Termination
Financial terms
This list is not exhaustive - additional change types may appear.
You can also filter results by change type.
Exporting the summary
After generating the overview (and applying any filters), you can export the results to a separate Word document. This allows you to share, archive, or include the summary in review or approval workflows.